Tag Archives: Jerusalem

Psalm 123 Appealing to the God whose Mercy Overcomes Contempt

Psalm 123

A Song of Ascents

¹ To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
² As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

³ Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
⁴ Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

If you read the psalms of ascent as a sequence, which scholars assume was a common practice during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there is a narrative that may underly the pattern. The psalmist begins in a place far from the city of peace surrounded by those who desire war (Psalm 120). The psalmist then departs on a journey lifting up their eyes to the hills (Mount Zion-Psalm 121). In the third song of ascent the psalmist arrives at their destination of Jerusalem (Psalm 122). Now in Jerusalem the pilgrim is joined by other pilgrims coming to the city of peace and they turn their eyes to God and lift up their complaint about the world they come from. They have left behind others in a land of people who seek conflict and speak with lying lips (Psalm 120) and now in the city of God they appeal for not only Jerusalem but the world the LORD stands in authority over.

The psalm begins with a solitary speaker lifting up their eyes to the LORD who sits on the seat of authority in heaven. The psalmist may imagine God presiding over the gods of the nations as in Psalm 82 as they address the LORD in this manner, and this may set the stage for the complaint that the people raise about the contempt and scorn they have received in the nations. The eyes of an individual pilgrim are joined by other servants and maids of the LORD their God look to their master for mercy. The Hebrew conception of the relationship between a servant or maid and their master or mistress envisions the master/mistress bearing responsibility for their subordinates. The subordinates are dependent upon their master for their provision and protection, but the expectations of the master in the psalm are conditioned by the merciful LORD their God who is master over the heavens and the earth. The identity of the LORD God as expressed by God in Exodus 34 is:

“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34: 5-7.

And the blessing of the Aaronic priests in Numbers 6:22-27 echoes the ideas of God turning God’s face in graciousness towards those who lift up their eyes to the LORD:

²² The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²³ “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them:
²⁴ The Lord bless you and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
²⁷ “So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The pilgrim has joined other pilgrims within the city seeking mercy from the LORD their God and they lift up their eyes and their appeal. As Walter Brueggemann notes, “Our psalmist…dares to look to heaven, not because he is worthy but because he knows that the master to whom he looks is merciful.” (Bellinger, 2014, p. 533)

The character of the people of God is expected to match the God who they serve and this informs the view of what the kings, princes, and nobles of Israel were to be. The character of God is one of the reasons that subordinates can look to those in authority over them with the expectation of receiving mercy. This psalm made me reflect on leaders I have encountered in numerous settings who I was proud to serve under. They were leaders who were invested in those who they led and were dependable. Many of them saw the way they led as connected to their faith and it was reflected not only in their actions but in the response of their subordinates to their authority.

Psalm 123 is unusual because it ends in complaint rather than thanksgiving, but it may rely on the following psalm to complete the normal pattern. The pilgrim looks at the world of people of lying lips and who seek conflict and they dare to seek in their God, “the grace that overcomes the world.” (Mays, 1994, p. 396) Before they begin their complaint they have invoked God’s mercy three times. They need God’s mercy to overcome the contempt and scorn which have overwhelmed them. Nancy deClaissé-Walford notes on the translation of verse three and four:

The word translated overwhelmed (NRSVue have had more than enough/ its fill) is from the root ‘saba’, which means, literally, “eat one’s full, be sated, have enough.” And interestingly the word translated mockery (NRSVue scorn) is from the root la’ag, which beans literally, “speak with a stammering tongue.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 904)

Their experience of conflict and lies in their communities have overwhelmed them. They have had more of mockery and scorn than they can take and the leaders in the communities they have come from leave them crying out for God’s mercy which can overcome the mockery and scorn which overwhelms them.

J. Clinton McCann, Jr. connects the language of this complaint to the post-exilic experience of the time of Nehemiah.

As several scholars observe, the situation certainly sounds like that of the post-exilic era (see, e.g., Neh 2:19, 4:4, where “ridiculed” and “despised” represent the same Hebrew root as “contempt” in Ps 123: 3-4, “scorn” in 123:4 also occurs in Neh 2:19; 4:1 as “mocked.” (NIB IV: 1187)

The post-exilic experience of returning to the remains of the once proud city of Jerusalem and being taunted by their neighbors is a reasonable backstory for the psalm, but the experience of being overwhelmed by contempt or scorn is a common experience. If the experience is tied to the experience of Psalm 120 that also is a common experience of people longing for peace and justice in an unjust world that seeks conflict. That is one of the reasons that the psalms continue to resonate thousands of years after their composition. They may have originally spoken to a specific crisis in the pilgrim’s life but now they speak to the community of the faithful raising their eyes to God and appealing for God’s mercy which can overcome the experiences and injustices which threaten to overwhelm them.

Psalm 122 Prayers of Peace for Jerusalem

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The Bünting Clover Leaf Map, by Heinrich Bünting, was published in 1581 and depicts Jerusalem as the center of the world.

Psalm 122

A Song of Ascents

¹ I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
² Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.

³ Jerusalem—built as a city
that is bound firmly together.
⁴ To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
⁵ For there the thrones for judgment were set up,
the thrones of the house of David.

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
⁷ Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers.”
⁸ For the sake of my relatives and friends
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
⁹ For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

If we look at the first three songs of ascent in order (Psalm 120-122) there is a suggestive narrative. The psalmist begins in a place far from the city of peace surrounded by those who desire war (Psalm 120). The psalmist then departs on a journey lifting up their eyes to the hills (Mount Zion-Psalm 121). In this third song of ascent the psalmist arrives at their destination of Jerusalem. (NIB IV:1183) This song of thanksgiving upon arriving in the city of Jerusalem, the spiritual center of their world captures the joy of a pilgrim upon reaching their long-awaited destination.

Both Isaiah 2: 2-3 and Micah 4:1-4 envision Jerusalem as being the spiritual center of the world for Jews and Gentiles, where the nations see the people living in harmony with God’s will for the world and they come to the mountain of God seeking instruction. Jerusalem becomes the pivot for a complete reordering of power in the prophetic imagination as swords become plowshares and spears become pruning hooks. The city of shalom (Jerusalem) becomes a light on the hill that the nations are drawn to learn God’s ways of peace.

The psalm is structured around the two houses that reside in Jerusalem: the house of the LORD and the house of David. The house of David occupies the central verse of the poem structurally, and the royal house occupies an important role in providing judgment for people coming to the city. As James L. Mays can highlight:

Pilgrimage season was likely a time when conflicts and disputes unsettled in the country courts were brought to the royal officials and their successors in the postexilic period. The peace of the community depended on the establishment of justice. Pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice. (Mays, 1994, p. 393)

The house of David has a crucial role in making Jerusalem a place of shalom, but the psalm also places the house of the LORD as the bookends structurally of the psalm. The place of the house of the LORD at the beginning and end encompasses the authority of the house of David. (NIB IV: 1184) 2 Samuel 7 makes a similar point when the LORD informs David that he will build a house (lineage) for David rather than David building a house for the LORD.

The psalm begins with a joyous embrace of the traditional call to go up to the house of the LORD. There is some debate about whether the perspective of the psalmist is currently in Jerusalem (are) or whether it should be translated in past tense as the psalmist remembers Jerusalem in anticipation of a journey, but I have stayed with the NRSVue’s translation of Our feet are standing. From the perspective of the pilgrim, Jerusalem is a city bound firmly together. There is some Hebrew word play in the word for bound (Hebrew habar) which is never elsewhere used for construction and always refers to human alliances or covenants. (NIB IV:1184) The psalm imagines a time where the unified tribes of Israel gather in Jerusalem as a place of festival, worship, and ultimately peace making.

The language in verse six to seven centers around shalom (peace) and Jerusalem (yeru-shalom) and the structure in Hebrew makes this even clearer by the phonetic repetition of ‘sh’ and ‘l’ sounds. As Nancy deClaissé-Walford states:

Of the ten Hebrew words that make up vv. 6 and 7, six contain the letters sin and lamed: ask (sha’alu); well-being (twice) (shalom); Jerusalem (yerushalaim); may they be at ease (yishelayu); and tranquility (shalwa)—acoustically and visually emphasizing the theme of well-being. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 901)

Jerusalem is the city of shalom, the longed-for peace absent in Psalm 120. Peace is for the city of peace, for the walls that defend the city from hostility, and for the families who are present in the city or back home. Psalm 133 will later echo this hope for peace among relatives.

Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger make an important point for this prophetic imagination of the people in the context of the exile. When there is no longer a city of shalom to seek where the houses of the LORD and David reside, how are the people to function? Brueggemann points to the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29: 4-10) when he states:

”seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” The word “welfare” of course renders the Hebrew shalom; the prophet is exhorting the deportees to pray for the shalom of the city of Babylon. (Bellinger, 2014, p. 530)

In the absence of the city, the temple, and the Davidic king it was still possible to seek peace, but it involved seeking the shalom of the place where you find yourself transplanted. Even if Jerusalem is de-centered from the world, peace can still be found in the cities where the pilgrims sojourn.

Reflections after a Journey Through 2 Kings

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Charles-Antoine Bridan, Relief on the Wall of Notre Dame Cathedral in Chartres (1786-1789) Isaiah speaking to King Ahaz

The practice of a sustained reflection on scripture, particularly the parts I am less familiar with, has been a big part of my growth over the past thirteen years. This is a significant part of my discipline of learning how to use the fullness of wisdom and learning in scripture and every book in its own way changes me a little. The book of Kings as a whole portion of the story of Israel and Judah from Solomon to the collapse of the Davidic line of kings, Jerusalem, and the temple tries to comprehend how the people could go from the pinnacle at the beginning of Solomon’s reign to the pit of the exile. 2 Kings begins in the middle of the stories of Elijah and Elisha and then moves through the end of the northern kingdom of Israel under Assyria and the southern kingdom of Judah under Babylon.

2 Kings provides a context for the pre-exilic prophets. The narrator of 2 Kings provides short narrations of the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah, but when this is paired with Amos, Hosea, early Isaiah (or first Isaiah), Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Jeremiah and Ezekiel it provides multiple windows into this time. I’ve been writing on this blog about the bible since 2013 and one of the earlier books I started in 2013 was the book of Jeremiah which coincides with the final four chapters of 2 Kings. There are a total of sixteen books of the bible I have now worked through in whole or in part, and it is amazing how much I have learned and grown. When I compare what I knew about this period when I worked on Jeremiah to how I see it now it is amazing how much fuller my vision is. 2 Kings shares several connections with Isaiah and Jeremiah

Although it is an ancient story, the book of Kings narrates the struggle of remaining faithful to the LORD the God of Israel in a world of numerous alternatives. Israel and Judah struggled to maintain their distinctiveness among the nations and kings often influenced their people to follow the practices of the nations they traded and made alliances with. The book of Kings could also be the book of Prophets and particularly in the Elijah and Elisha narrative the prophetic seems to take precedence over the kings in the narrative. In Judah in 2 Kings there are some moments of hope, particularly with Jehoash, Hezekiah, and Josiah but there are also many moments where the reforms of these good kings are undone by the wickedness of the next generation. God is slow to give up on this people and eagerly looks for repentance, but by the end of the story both Israel and Judah have exhausted the patience of God.

2 Kings 25 The End of the First Temple Era in Jerusalem

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Ilya Repin, Cry of the Prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem (1870)

2 Kings 25: 1-21 The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Group of Judeans Taken Into Exile

¹ And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around. ² So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. ⁴ Then a breach was made in the city wall; the king with all the soldiers fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the King’s Garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him. ⁶ Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him. ⁷ They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon.
⁸ In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. ⁹ He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. ¹⁰ All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. ¹¹ Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude. ¹² But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.
¹³ The bronze pillars that were in the house of the LORD as well as the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁴ They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the dishes for incense, and all the bronze vessels used in the temple service, ¹⁵ as well as the firepans and the basins. What was made of gold the captain of the guard took away for the gold and what was made of silver for the silver. ¹⁶ As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing. ¹⁷ The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it was a bronze capital; the height of the capital was three cubits; latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were on the capital all around. The second pillar had the same, with the latticework.
¹⁸ The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold; ¹⁹ from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers and five men of the king’s council who were found in the city; the secretary who was the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. ²⁰ Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. ²¹ The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.

The final chapter of 2 Kings brings the first temple period of Israel to its tragic conclusion. 2 Kings 24: 18-25:30 and Jeremiah 52 are mostly identical[1] and almost certainly share a common source. There is a long tradition connecting Jeremiah and the Deuteronomic history which narrates from Joshua through the end of 2 Kings, and they share a common theological perspective. Regardless author who compiled 2 Kings shared material with the individual who collected the sayings of both Isaiah[2] and Jeremiah and the compilation of these remembrances of the prophets and the narration of the story of the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah are a part of mourning the loss of Jerusalem, the temple, and the Davidic king as well as assigning meaning to the tragedy.

Zedekiah, originally named Mattaniah, was Josiah’s third son who was introduced in 2 Kings 24:17 and who foolishly, in the view of 2 Kings, rebels against King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. Jerusalem was again at the center of a coalition attempting to throw off their masters and there were prophets who encouraged this rebellion as we see in Jeremiah. Alex Israel summarizes the moment well:

Nebuchadnezzar had absented himself from the region, attending to other pressing campaigns in his far-flung kingdom. But the Akkadian rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar in 595-594 BCE aroused regional hopes of overthrowing Babylonian control. Yet, again Jerusalem was the center of a southern conspiracy in which the kings of Edom, Moav, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon convened in Jerusalem during the fourth year of Zedekiah’s rule. (Jer. 27:9, 15-18; 28:3-4.) The kings were boosted by prophets who predicted the success of the rebellion and the return of the Temple vessels to Jerusalem. One such prophet, Hannania ben Azzur, even promises the imminent restoration of the exiled king Jehoachin to Jerusalem. Hope of independence runs high. (Israel, 2019, p. 362)

The prophet Jeremiah is a lone and often unpopular voice which speaks against this rebellion and is often viewed as a traitor by many of his fellow residents of Jerusalem. Zedekiah is portrayed in Jeremiah as a king who is sympathetic to Jeremiah and seeks God’s word through him but is unable to resist the other nobles and leaders who surround him. The removal of the elites in the first exile may have made the remaining leaders a less wise and more volatile group, but ultimately between the false prophets like Hananiah and the people surrounding King Zedekiah the city and the people find themselves in revolt against Babylon.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon turns his forces towards the rebellious capital of Jerusalem and entrusts his captain Nebuzaradan with dealing with this troublesome nation. Nebuzaradan’s title in the Hebrew, rav tabbahim, literally means “the chief cook” but like Potiphar in Genesis 37:36 who shares this title it probably has little to do with cooking. As Alex Israel can note about the Hebrew verb tbh, which is behind tabbahim, “can be translated as “cook” or as “slaughter”; as such Nebuzaradan has been seared into the Jewish memory as the “chief executioner.” (Israel, 2019, p. 365) Nebuzaradan initiates a siege which lasts from the tenth month of Zedekiah’s ninth year to the ninth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. Near the end of this almost two year long siege the situation in Jerusalem has become so desperate that Lamentations remembers it in these harsh words:

⁴ The tongue of the infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,but there is nothing for them.
⁵ Those who feasted on delicacies perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple cling to ash heaps.
⁶ For the chastisement of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment,
though no hand was laid on it.
⁷ Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral, their form cut like sapphire.
⁸ Now their visage is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.
⁹ Happier were those pierced by the sword than those pierced by hunger, whose life drains away, deprived of the produce of the field.
¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children;
they became their food in the destruction of my people.

Lamentations 4: 4-10

In this moment Zedekiah attempts to flee, fighting his was free with the remaining soldiers and is captured by the Babylonians at the plains of Jericho. The remaining army scatters which provides a reason why there are captains of the forces who will come to Gedaliah in the following section.

Nebuzaradan may be thought of as the chief butcher in the memory of the Jewish people, and he is responsible for the destruction of the walls and the temple as well as the death of the king’s sons[3] and many of the remaining leaders. However, Jerusalem has been an unreliable vassal and at the center of the rebellion against the empire. He does eliminate the remaining power structure that led the city into rebellion: the king is taken into exile blind and without heirs, the leaders of the temple, the government officers near the king, and many of the ‘people of the land’ who exercised power in Jerusalem are executed, but after the riches remaining in the temple are cut up and carted off to Babylon he also razes the city and the temple. The razing of the capital indicates the Babylon has no interest in reorganizing Judah around this unfaithful center. (Cogan, 1988, pp. 323-324)

Both 2 Kings and Jeremiah spend more time cataloging the items removed from the temple than the disposition of the remaining people. This may be structural for book of Kings which begins with Solomon taking the throne and building the temple. Now that book closes with the destruction of the temple and the removal of all the items that Solomon created for the temple. It is also plausible that the catalog of the items removed is for a hopeful time when the treasures of the temple can be returned to the people for a new temple. Jeremiah 52:30 indicates that Nebuzaradan only takes into exile seven hundred forty-five people from Jerusalem and the surrounding territory, and this number seems incredible small.[4] The entirety of the people is not displaced. A diminished people who are, in 2 Kings narration, the poorest of the land are left to care for the fields and vineyards of what remains of Judah.

2 Kings 25: 22-26 The Appointment and Assassination Gedaliah the Governor

²² He appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan as governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had left. ²³ Now when all the captains of the forces and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah, namely, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite. ²⁴ Gedaliah swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid because of the Chaldean officials; live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.” ²⁵ But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men; they struck down Gedaliah so that he died, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. ²⁶ Then all the people, high and low, and the captains of the forces set out and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

Nebuzaradan appoints Gedaliah to be the governor over what remains of Judah. Gedaliah’s grandfather was the secretary in the time of Josiah (2 Kings 22:3) and his father Ahikam was sent along with his grandfather to the prophet Huldah seeking God’s guidance. Ahikam also had protected Jeremiah in the past (Jeremiah 26:24) and Jeremiah supported Gedaliah. Nebuzaradan was aware of Jeremiah’s stance on the war (Jeremiah 40:4) and it is conceivable that Nebuzaradan chose Gedaliah because of his proximity to Jeremiah.[5] The remaining leaders of fighting men came to Gedaliah and received an offer of clemency if they would serve the land and remain loyal to Babylon.

Jeremiah 40–41 goes into a longer narration of the plot against Gedaliah. Johanan son of Kareah comes and informs Gedaliah that Ishmael son of Nethaniah is engaged with the Ammonite king in a plot to kill Gedaliah.[6] Johanan offers to kill Ishmael but Gedaliah refuses to believe the warning and is killed by Ishmael and his men. The remaining exiles view the murder of the governor as the final nail in the coffin of Judah as a nation and reverse the Exodus by fleeing to Egypt. Jeremiah informed the people not to flee, but Johanan and the commanders take the remaining people including Jeremiah into exile. (Jeremiah 42–43)

2 Kings 25: 27-30 A Brief Note of Hope for the Line of David

²⁷ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison; ²⁸ he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. ²⁹ So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king’s presence. ³⁰ For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived.

King Evil-merodach (aka Amel-marduk) was the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar and at the beginning of his reign he shows favor to Jehoiachin. This is a small moment of hope at the ending of this tragedy. The English, released…from prison, misses some of the parallels in the Hebrew phrase that literally means “raised the head.” This is the same phrase used in the dreams of Pharoah’s servants in Genesis 40:13[7] and indicates assuming power and authority again. A generation later the grandson of Jehoiachin, Zerubbabel will be one of the leaders of the generation that returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.[8]

[1] Jeremiah 52: 28-30 gives additional details about the people deported and omits the governorship and assassination of Gedaliah which Jeremiah deals with in more detail in Jeremiah 40-41.

[2] As mentioned above the crossover between 2 Kings 18–19 and Isaiah 36-37.

[3] The murder of the king’s sons before blinding Zedekiah is intended as a torment where the last thing Zedekiah sees is the ending of his line.

[4] Jeremiah also has significantly smaller numbers for the initial exile. See Jeremiah 52:28-29.

[5] This is not explicit in Jeremiah, and it is also possible that Gedaliah was also known as a voice who opposed the war.

[6] Killing Gedaliah would destabilize the region and the Ammonite king may have seen this as an opportunity.

[7] The second servant does have his head raised up in being executed, but the situation of Jehoiachin parallels the first servant who returns to his office as the chief cupbearer.

[8] 1 Chronicles 3: 17-19 gives the lineage of Zerubbabel as the grandson of Jechoniah. Ezra 2:1 and Haggai 2:4 indicate that Zerubbabel is one of the leaders who return to rebuild the temple.

2 Kings 24 The Last Kings of Judah and the Initial Exile

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Striding lions from the Processional Street of Babylon. Exhibited at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

2 Kings 24: 1-7 The Reign of Jehoiakim

¹ In his days King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up; Jehoiakim became his servant for three years, then turned and rebelled against him. ² He sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed, ⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he had shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to pardon. ⁵ Now the rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ⁶ So Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors; then his son Jehoiachin succeeded him. ⁷ The king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken over all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates.

Jehoiakim was installed by Pharaoh Neco to replace his younger brother Jehoahaz who Neco took into imprisonment at Riblah. Jehoiakim begins his reign as a vassal of Egypt but during his eleven years as king the situation dramatically shifts as Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon becomes the dominant power in the region forcing Egypt’s influence to recede back beyond the Wadi of Egypt. The forces of Babylon (Chaldeans,[1] Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites) raid into Judah, and although the siege of Jerusalem will not occur until Jehoiakim’s sons brief reign, the forces that will bring about the end of the time of Judah are in motion.

Jehoiakim appears frequently in the book of Jeremiah in a negative light. The king is portrayed as living in luxury while the nation struggles, mistreating the poor and executing those who speak against his policies.[2] The king executes Uriah son of Shemiah who prophecies in a manner similar to Jeremiah and Jeremiah is protected by some of the officials, including Ahikam son of Shaphan (secretary during the time of Josiah)[3] Jeremiah sends a scroll with God’s words to Jehoiakim but in contrast to his father Josiah who tore his clothes in mourning Jehoiakim tore (same verb in Hebrew) the scroll after it was read and cast it into the fire.[4]

Jeremiah declares the Jehoiakim will die “the death of a donkey…dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” (Jeremiah 22:19) 2 Kings states that Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors indicating a normal death and burial. Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon after being a vassal for three years, likely in response to a defeat in Egypt which Nebuchadnezzar returns to Babylon to give his forces time to recover and rebuild. This time the rebellion of Judah does not go unpunished, and this leads to the first siege of Jerusalem by Babylon. Jehoiakim is roughly thirty-six when he dies so it is possible that he is killed by elements within Jerusalem seeking a different leader to attempt to negotiate with the threat of Babylon.

2 Kings 24: 8-17 The Reign of Jehoiachin and the First Siege of Jerusalem

⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. ⁹ He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his father had done.
¹⁰ At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. ¹¹ King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it; ¹² King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon: himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.

¹³ He carried off all the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the LORD that King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as the LORD had foretold. ¹⁴ He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained except the poorest people of the land. ¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, seven thousand, the artisans and the smiths, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war. ¹⁷ The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

The short reign of Jehoiachin is significant because it marks a critical change for Judah. Jehoiachin inherits the troubles his father inflamed by rebelling against Babylon and reigns briefly over a besieged city. We know that the king and his royal household surrender on March 16 (the second of Adar) 597 BCE and the royal household, warriors, artisans and smiths are taken into exile while the remainder of the people remain under the charge of Zedekiah. This initial exile of the leaders, elites, and skilled members of the population are the setting of the narrative at the beginning of Daniel. We also know that the prophet Ezekiel was among those exiled.[5] The city of Jerusalem and the temple remain but ten thousand people and the riches of the temple and royal household are removed into Babylon.

This creates a new situation for Judah which now has two centers of life: one in exile in Babylon and one remaining in the land. Jeremiah will be the prophet remaining in the land while Ezekiel will emerge to be the prophet for those in exile. The prophet Jeremiah will receive a vision of two baskets of figs, one very good and one rotten, and in this vision the good figs will be Jehoiachin, and the people taken into exile who God views favorable and the rotten figs are Zedekiah and those remaining in Jerusalem.[6] Ezekiel also shares this perspective that the population in exile will be the population of Judah that endures.

2 Kings 24: 18-20 The Reign and Rebellion of Zedekiah

¹⁸ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ¹⁹ He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰ Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the LORD that he expelled them from his presence.

Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Zedekiah is left in charge of the remnant in Jerusalem. The final line of the chapter strikes the critical note for Zedekiah’s reign. He is portrayed in Jeremiah as a king who does seek the prophet’s words but is ultimately unable or unwilling to resist his advisors who lead him into conflict with Babylon. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah all reign under the thumb of external powers, Egypt for Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim initially and then Babylon for Jehoiakim through Zedekiah. Yet for the narrator of 2 Kings all of this is a part of God’s action to judge the unfaithfulness of Judah which reaches its climax under Manasseh but extends back to Solomon and beyond. Judah and Jerusalem are expelled from the presence of God because of their disobedience in 2 Kings. Zedekiah’s rebellion sets Babylon in motion to be the instrument of that judgment.

[1] Although we think of Babylon as the empire, the Chaldeans were the dominant people of this empire. All ancient empires were coalitions of groups and so the presence of Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites (neighbors of Judah) are not surprising.

[2] See Jeremiah 22.

[3] 2 Kings 22:3.

[4] Jeremiah 36: 20-26.

[5] Ezekiel would receive his call as a prophet while in exile (Ezekiel 1). Kish the grandfather of Mordecai (uncle of Esther) was also among this group of exiles in Esther 2:5-6. Many scholars view the book of Daniel as a later book written well after the exile, but the setting of the initial chapters of the book are this initial exile of the elites to Babylon.

[6] Jeremiah 24.

2 Kings 23 The Reforms and Death of Josiah

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The Death of Josiah By Francesco Conti – http://www.christies.com/lotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=3957236 2012-07-05, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20143783

2 Kings 23: 1-3 Attempting to Recreate the Covenant

¹ Then the king directed that all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem should be gathered to him. ² The king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him went all the people of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. ³ The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.

King Josiah responded to the rediscovered book of the law of Moses with repentance and seeking God’s will through the prophet Hulda. After learning that his understanding of the judgment that hangs over the people is confirmed by God and learning that God has seen and responded to the king’s action of mourning and repentance Josiah initiates his reforms by gathering the leaders and the people of Judah in an action to recommit the people to the covenant. The action echoes the creation of the covenant between God and the people by Moses (Exodus 24: 4-8), the recommittal to the covenant preceding Moses’ death (Deuteronomy 29:2-29)[1] and finally when Joshua renews the covenant in the promised land (Joshua 8:30-35). Throughout the narratives of the book of Judges, 1&2 Samuel, and 1&2 Kings this is the only instance of covenant renewal of this type. Other kings have attempted to renew the worship in the temple or the building of the temple, but only here in the time of kings are the people reconnected to the law in this manner.[2] This will also happen when the temple is rebuilt and the people are regathered in Jerusalem under the governor Nehemiah and the priest Ezra (Nehemiah 8). King Josiah seems to understand that his personal repentance may be enough for his own reign, but the only chance for the people lies in reestablishing the practices that were designed to make the people of Judah into the people of the LORD the God of Israel.

2 Kings 23: 4-14 Reforming the Practices in Judah

⁴ The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. ⁶ He brought out the image of Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust, and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. ⁷ He broke down the houses of the illicit priests who were in the house of the LORD, where the women did weaving for Asherah. ⁸ He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city. ⁹ The priests of the high places, however, did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem but ate unleavened bread among their kindred. ¹⁰ He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. ¹¹ He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech, which was in the precincts; then he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹² The altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz that the kings of Judah had made and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord he pulled down from there and broke in pieces and threw the rubble into the Wadi Kidron. ¹³ The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ¹⁴ He broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the sacred poles, and covered the sites with human bones.

The list of idolatrous images and practices that Josiah attempts to eradicate is encyclopedic in nature and paints the picture of the pervasive perversity of the people. Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven have all been attractive alternatives for the leaders and people of Israel throughout their history as well as the worship at the high places by local priests and leaders who may not have been committed exclusively to the LORD. The ‘illicit priests’ (NRSVue) of verse seven is rendered ‘male prostitutes’ in many translations[3] and may indicate a linkage between some of these idolatrous religious practices and sexual practices. The list is similar to the list of abominable practices in the temple in Ezekiel 8 and it is likely that even during Josiah’s life many of these practices endured even if they were done in secret. Some of these idolatrous practices go back to the time of King Solomon (1 Kings 11: 1-13) and King Josiah forms a faithful contrast to Solomon. The actions of removing and destroying these idolatrous imagery and practices in a public and cultic manner is intended to purge these images from the practices of Judah. Josiah attempts to eradicate these practices, both long standing and recent, and attempt to recenter worship in a purged temple with administered by the priests who are faithful to the LORD in Jerusalem.

The reading of the covenant is not enough. Josiah seems to understand that only a complete abandonment of the idolatrous practices of his ancestors and the people may turn away the anger of the LORD. His work of purging the temple, the countryside, and the people is a model of what is expected in the law (Deuteronomy 12: 1-12), but despite the extreme actions to purge these images and practices from Judah the renewal will not survive his death. There is an optimism in the time of Josiah that is reflected in the prophet Jeremiah, but Jeremiah will also see that the reforms do not run deep enough and the people quickly return to the practices that Josiah attempted to eradicate.

2 Kings 23: 15-20 Reforming the Practices in Israel

¹⁵ Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin—he pulled down that altar along with the high place. He burned the high place, crushing it to dust; he also burned the sacred pole. ¹⁶ As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD that the man of God proclaimed when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival; he turned and looked up at the tomb of the man of God who had proclaimed these things. ¹⁷ Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” The people of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” ¹⁸ He said, “Let him rest; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. ¹⁹ Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria that kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger; he did to them just as he had done at Bethel. ²⁰ He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

I intentionally separated this section from the previous section because the actions here are occurring in Northern Israel/Samaria. Jeremiah also indicates that during the time of Josiah there was a hope for a reunification of the two halves of Israel that had broken apart after Solomon (1 Kings 12). It is difficult to peer this far back into history since we have few historical witnesses from this point but it is plausible with Assyrian power in decline that Josiah may have had a window where he could assume control over portions of Northern Israel/Samaria and attempt to bring the people who now live there into the worship of the LORD. Bethel is mentioned, but the altar in Dan is not. However, the story takes us back to the strange story of the unnamed prophet who testifies against the altar at Bethel and foretells its destruction under Josiah and then is later buried in the city. (1 Kings 13) The method of defiling the altars that Josiah practices to bring about ritual uncleanness is not specifically outlined in the law, although contact with a dead body did bring about ritual uncleanness. The killing of the idolatrous priests, however, is consistent with the expectations of Deuteronomy 13: 13-19 for a man who has led people to follow other gods.

2 Kings 23: 21-23 Reestablishing the Passover

²¹ The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the LORD your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.” ²² No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah, ²³ but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

Passover is the ritual that reminds the people of Israel of their identity, an identity that goes to the heart of the law. They are descendants of a people enslaved and liberated by the LORD’s powerful actions to deliver them from Egypt. This central festival in the life of the people of God is mentioned here for the first time in the books of 1 & 2 Kings and is not mentioned in Judges or 1 & 2 Samuel either. The last time the scriptures note the people celebrating the Passover prior to Josiah was in Joshua when the people celebrated at Gilgal.[4] There is an attempt to reconnect the people to their story through the renewal of the covenant, the removal of idolatrous alternatives, and the reinstatement of the rituals which help provide meaning. It is possible that Passover celebrations have continued through the story of Israel with or without royal institution, but I do believe that 2 Kings is attempting to show a drastic contrast between the loss of communal identity in the practices that surround the practice of the commandments, statutes, and ordinances of the law. Something central to the life of the people, in the view of 2 Kings, has been lost for many generations and for a brief window under Josiah there is the potential to rediscover the life the people were intended to live in the promised land.

2 Kings 23: 24-30 The Death of Josiah, a Final Word on both Josiah and Judah

²⁴ Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the LORD. ²⁵ Before him there was no king like him who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.
²⁶ Still the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath by which his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. ²⁷ The LORD said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’ ”

²⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ²⁹ In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the River Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him, but when Pharaoh Neco met him at Megiddo, he killed him. ³⁰ His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

Josiah’s actions to restore the nation of Judah to the expectations of the words of the law are shown in the book as an example of what a good king was expected to be. Yet all the works of Josiah are not enough to turn aside the anger of the LORD. They delay the anger and provide a window of perceived prosperity during the lifetime of this king but ultimately it seems that the wickedness of Manasseh have a greater impact on the future of the people than the reforms of Josiah. Josiah may be portrayed alongside Moses, Joshua, David, and Hezekiah as shining examples of leaders seeking God’s ways but ultimately these leaders were unable to undo the corruption among the people.

The prophet Jeremiah, when writing about the time of Josiah, shares the early optimism of what could be with this reformer king but quickly realizes that the reforms did not change the practices of the people. Josiah may be able to capture a hope of a reunification of Israel and a return to their previous relationship with their God but the rituals, the readings of the law, and the removal of the idols do not ultimately change the hearts of the people and the leaders who will follow him. Just as Hezekiah was followed by Manasseh, so Josiah will be followed by leaders who are unable or unwilling to continue his actions.

The Deuteronomic history and 2 Kings is written from the perspective of the exile of Judah and wants to understand how the people of Israel could fall from their pinnacle under David and Solomon to the moment where they are exiles in a foreign land. 2 Kings like the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel points to the wickedness of Manasseh but also a wickedness that goes back to Solomon’s betrayal under the influence of his wives. On the one hand, from the perspective of the narrator, the LORD has been incredibly patient with both Israel and Judah waiting for generations for them to live into their identity and willing to postpone God’s wrath for the sake of these moments of repentance. On the other hand, the narration of the unfaithful history of Judah and Israel in the words of 1 & 2 Kings helps to provide meaning and context for a people who have lost their land, their king, and their temple.

Josiah’s death occurs abruptly in the text and brings an end to this time of possibility. We can only hypothesize why Josiah would go out to meet Pharoah Neco at Megiddo. Assyria is in decline and by 610 BCE is beginning to lose ground to the Babylonians. Pharoah Neco at this time is a relatively new king and leads a force northward to help the Assyrians when Josiah meets him at Megiddo. Could Josiah be forming an alliance with Babylon against Assyria? It is possible. It is also possible that this king who has experienced success in regaining territory in Northern Israel to bring about the possibility of a reunited kingdom may view himself as divinely authorized to protect the land from any invasion even if Pharoah’s armies were only intending to pass through Judah on their way to the conflict in the north. Ultimately the critical reality is that Josiah dies at the hands of Pharoah Neco and this brings about the end of this final promising moment in the history of Davidic kings. Josiah is buried but ultimately does not die in peace as the prophet Huldah had stated and his death brings about the rapid descent of Judah towards its exile under Babylon.

2 Kings 23: 31-37 The Brief Reign of Jehoahaz and the Transition to Jehoiakim

³¹ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ³² He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his ancestors had done. ³³ Pharaoh Neco confined him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed tribute on the land of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. ³⁴ Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away; he came to Egypt and died there. ³⁵ Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to meet Pharaoh’s demand for money. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from all according to their assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

³⁶ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. ³⁷ He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as all his ancestors had done.

Jehoahaz, whose birth name seems to be Shallum[5] reigned for only three months before he was removed by Pharoah Neco and replaced by Jehoiakim as a more palatable leader to Egypt who now extends control over Judah and requires a heavy tribute[6] on the people. The death of Josiah has not only brought about an end to the reforms of his reign but has also changed the political situation of the people. We don’t know what Jehoahaz did in his three-month reign, which was evil in the sight of the narrator of 2 Kings, but his unfaithfulness is implied to be linked to the decline of the people as we move into the final two chapters of the narrative.

Jehoiakim, Josiah’s second born son, is chosen to succeed Jehoahaz by Pharoah Neco. This is an area where the chapter break would make sense to come two verses earlier since Jehoiakim’s story follows in the coming chapter. At this point it is worth noting the narrator’s judgment of Jehoiakim as one who did evil in the sight of the LORD and then end this discussion to resume his story in the following chapter.

[1] The narrative setting of the book of Deuteronomy paints the book as a witness of Moses’ public restatement of the law before the people which the people assent to at the end of the book.

[2] Many biblical scholars from the historical critical and source critical schools would argue that the law as we have it in Genesis-Deuteronomy is a later document. Their arguments are cogent, but ultimately, I do think it is likely that even if Genesis-Deuteronomy will reach their final form in the time of exile there is some pre-existing collection of the commandments which is active here and earlier through the story of Israel and Judah.

[3] The Hebrew qesesim refers to ‘sacred males.’ “It is an open question whether these persons were or were not male “cult prostitutes.” (Cogan, 1988, p. 286)

[4] Joshua 5: 10-12. 2 Chronicles 30 mentions a celebration of Passover under King Hezekiah, but in the Deuteronomic History (Joshua-2 Kings) this is the first mention since the time of Joshua

[5] Jeremiah 22: 11-12. 1 Chronicles 3:15 indicates that he was Josiah’s fourth son.

[6] A talent is around 70 pounds, so a tribute of roughly 7,000 pounds of silver and 70 pounds of gold in the text.

2 Kings 20 Hezekiah’s Healing and the Babylonian Envoys

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Hezekiah showing off his wealth to envoys of the Babylonian king, oil on canvas by Vicente López Portaña, 1789

2 Kings 20: 1-11

¹ In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.” ² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, ³ “Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight.” Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him, ⁵ “Turn back and say to Hezekiah prince of my people: Thus says the LORD, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; indeed, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. ⁶ I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.” ⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Bring a lump of figs. Let them take it and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover.”
⁸ Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD on the third day?” ⁹ Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has promised: Shall the shadow advance ten intervals, or shall it retreat ten intervals?” ¹⁰ Hezekiah answered, “It is normal for the shadow to lengthen ten intervals; rather, let the shadow retreat ten intervals.” ¹¹ The prophet Isaiah cried to the LORD, and he brought the shadow back the ten intervals, by which the sun had declined on the dial of Ahaz.

Even though these final two stories are placed after the siege of Jerusalem by Assyria they probably occurred earlier in the timeline, and the timeline given within the story indicates this as well. Chapter eighteen indicates that Hezekiah reigned for twenty-nine years, and within this story his life is extended by fifteen years which places these events in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign. This is significant because the fourteenth year of his reign (701 BCE) is when Jerusalem is besieged by Assyria (see 2 Kings 18:13) and although the illness and recovery could happen in the immediate aftermath of the siege the indication that “I will deliver you and this city out of the hands of the king of Assyria” probably indicates an impending threat to the city. The recovery of the king and the fate of the city are bound together with King Hezekiah being the model of the faithful king.

This is the fourth story in the narrative of 1&2 Kings where a king has asked the prophet if they will recover. In each of the previous stories: the wife of Jeroboam inquiring of Ahijah about her son (1 Kings 14: 1-18), King Ahaziah (who sends messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub and is given his sentence by Elijah in 2 Kings 1), and Ben-hadad (who the prophet Elisha delivers both the positive message of healing and the prophecy that leads to the kings murder by Hazael in 2 Kings 8: 7-15) the person asking ultimately dies. This fourth story the initial message is that the illness is fatal, and the king should put his affairs in order. King Hezekiah turns away from the prophet and tearfully and prayerfully prays to God.

Hezekiah’s prayer as recorded echoes the language of the prayers of the book of Psalms, where the prayer of the individual lifts up how they have walked in faithfulness and call upon God to respond to their obedience. The prayer of the faithful king changes God’s mind on the future for the king and by extension for the city. Brueggemann when writing about Isaiah’s description[1] of the king’s prayer can write:

The prayer of the king has changed the inclination of Yahweh. Prayer is not simply a subjective act of emotional posturing and submissiveness. It impinges upon God. The divine assurance takes place through four verbs: I have heard, I have seen, I will add, I will deliver…not unlike the series of verbs in Exodus 2:24-25 and 3:7. (Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39: Westminster Bible Commentary, 1998, pp. 303-304)

The response of the LORD through the prophet Isaiah is rapid, before the prophet leaves the palace grounds, and the king is promised restoration within three days and an additional fifteen years of life. The king asks for a sign and Isaiah offers that the LORD can move the sun to alter the time on a sundial, where the LORD will ultimately move the sundial back ten intervals. Unlike his father King Ahaz who was offered a sign by Isaiah and refused it (Isaiah 7) King Hezekiah asks for a sign, and it is granted. There are some similarities to the requests of Joshua request for more daylight in his battle against the Amorites (Joshua 10: 1-15) or Gideon’s request for a sign with the fleece (Judges 6:36-40), and in each story the LORD is not offended by the request for the sign and indeed grants it.

Hezekiah’s boil is treated with a poultice of figs, and although we do not know the nature of Hezekiah’s disease, the treatment and the promise of God work together to affect the healing of the king and to enable him to reign for an additional fifteen years. Unlike King Azariah (aka Uzziah) whose leprosy prevented him from continuing to reign (2 Kings 15:5), Hezekiah’s time as king is doubled by God’s intervention in response to the king’s tears and prayers. Although the editor of 2 Kings, like Isaiah and Chronicles, probably wanted to place the story of Jerusalem’s survival as the focal event of King Hezekiah’s reign, this story occurring before the siege also helps to give a reason for the trust of the king in the LORD’s promise of deliverance.

2 Kings 20:12-21

¹² At that time King Merodach-baladan son of Baladan of Babylon sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³ Hezekiah welcomed them; he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say? From where did they come to you?” Hezekiah answered, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”
¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD: ¹⁷ Days are coming when all that is in your house and that which your ancestors have stored up until this day shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the LORD. ¹⁸ Some of your own sons who are born to you shall be taken away; they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

²⁰ The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, all his power, how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ²¹ Hezekiah slept with his ancestors, and his son Manasseh succeeded him.

The envoys from Merodach-balaban based on the historical references we have also must have occurred before the siege of Jerusalem in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah (around 701 BCE). We know the Merodach-balaban returned to power in Babylon in the aftermath of King Sargon of Assyria’s death in 705, and while Hezekiah was pulling away from Assyria’s control in Jerusalem, he asserted his independence from Assyria with Elamite support in the southeast. When King Sennacherib began to reestablish dominance, he turned initially against Babylon in 704-703 and ended Merodach-balaban’s brief resurgent reign. (Cogan, 1988, pp. 260-261)[2] If these two stories are linked in time it is likely occurring even earlier than the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, around 705-703 BCE. Chronicles indicates that the envoys are sent because of the manipulation of time as a sign to Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:31), but this is also probably more than mere curiosity about an astrological event. Merodach-balaban and Hezekiah have a common purpose in resisting Assyria and the visit of the envoys likely has political implications.

Hezekiah welcomes these gift-bearing emissaries as honored guests and shows off the wealth of his storehouses, the temple, and the king’s house.[3] Isaiah, who appears to have easy access to the monarch, asks about the visitors and what they have seen and then gives an oracle that in the future Babylon will be responsible for the removal of the wealth of Jerusalem as well as the descendants of Hezekiah.

Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor note that the language of the prophecy in verses seventeen to nineteen is closely related to the language of Jeremiah and not like the language of Isaiah, (Cogan, 1988, p. 259) but this would require the parallel language in Isaiah 39 to also be written by Jeremiah.[4] Ultimately, we know that the prophet Micah who was active during the time of King Hezekiah prophesies that Jerusalem will ultimately be destroyed, although Micah does not indicate Babylon as the vessel. (Micah 3:12) Micah’s prophecy reemerges in the story of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:18) to justify Jeremiah’s words against the city and king. It may seem strange for Babylon to enter the scene when it will shortly seem like a minor threat, but likely these words of Isaiah become central to the retelling of the final five chapters of the book which end with Isaiah’s words being fulfilled.

As a king, Hezekiah must navigate between the prophetic expectations of faithfulness exclusively to the LORD the God of Israel and the political and diplomatic requirements of running a kingdom. What may have been an act of alliance making and friendship to Hezekiah looks like an act of foolishness to Isaiah. Political matters can shift quickly, and today’s allies may be tomorrow’s adversaries, but the narrator of the book of Kings wants us to remember that God is where the kings of Judah derive their power, security, and peace.

King Hezekiah’s response and thoughts which the narrator convey have been read combining a pious response and an inner thought unconcerned about future generations. The response of Hezekiah echoes the words of his prayer earlier in the chapter as Alex Israel notes:

“The word of the Lord…is good (tov)…If there will be peace (shalom) and security (emet) in my days.” The terms tov, shalom, and emet, echo from his earlier prayer: “Remember…how I have walked before You in faithfulness (emet) and with a whole (shalem) heart, and have done what is good (tov) in your eyes” (II Kings 20:2) (Israel, 2019, p. 313)

Although it is easy to read his private thoughts as unconcerned about the future generations, there is a pious reading like the words of the priest Eli in 1 Samuel 3:18, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.” Ultimately the future rests in the LORD’s hands and the hands of future generations. Earlier in the chapter we have seen how a faithful king’s prayer can change the future with the LORD.

The reign of Hezekiah is closed with the customary relation of his entire reign which highlights his power and specifically the creation of a reliable water supply for the city. We noted the king’s works to fortify the city and to bring water into the city in our notes on chapter eighteen, and they have been historically documented with the discovery of the inscription on the Siloam pool. Hezekiah’s reign is consequential both for the development of a Zion theology where the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and the Davidic king are under God’s protection as demonstrated by the deliverance of Jerusalem from Assyria, but 2 Kings includes the prophetic critique of this belief. Hezekiah is a good king in the eyes of 2 Kings and Isaiah, although Micah indicates that the reforms of the king do not ultimately impact the nobility, priesthood, and the people, much as Jeremiah will indicate under Josiah. This also is emphasized with the rapid return under Manasseh to the ‘abominable practices of the nations’ and turn aside from Hezekiah’s faithfulness.

[1] This story is echoed in Isaiah 38, although the ordering of the story is slightly different and it includes a long song of thanksgiving in response to the healing.

[2] Merodach-balaban initially reigns in 710 BCE but is removed by Sargon and flees, he returns to power briefly five years later when Sargon dies in battle.

[3] Another indication that this is before the siege of Jerusalem when Hezekiah takes the wealth of the temple and the king’s house to attempt to pay tribute to King Sennacherib.

[4] Cogan and Tadmor’s commentary comes from a period that focused more on source criticism and looked for evidence of multiple sources behind a text. I find those arguments interesting but ultimately, I come from more of a canonical school where I look to comment on the text as we have received it. There is a tradition where Jeremiah is the one responsible for assembling the book of Kings and the Deuteronomic History in general.

2 Kings 18 King Hezekiah and Sennacherib’s Threat to Jerusalem

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King Hezekiah on a 17th century painting by unknown artist in the choir of *Sankta Maria kyrka* in Åhus, Sweden.

2 Kings 18: 1-8

¹ In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reign. ² He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah. ³ He did what was right in the sight of the LORD, just as his ancestor David had done. ⁴ He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁵ He relied on the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him or among those who were before him. ⁶ For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the LORD had commanded Moses. ⁷ The LORD was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. ⁸ He attacked the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.

With the northern kingdom of Samaria (Israel) scattered by the Assyrians the remainder of the book of kings focuses on the kings in Jerusalem. Ultimately over the final eight chapters of 2 Kings it will focus on the two paradigmatically good kings, Hezekiah (chapters 18-20) and Josiah (chapters 22-23), in contrast to the kings ‘who do evil in the sight of the LORD. Hezekiah and Josiah are the only kings who are compared to their father David in faithfulness, and Hezekiah ‘held fast’ to the LORD in contrast to Solomon who in his later years ‘held fast’[1] to his foreign wives. (1 Kings 11:2) Hezekiah is viewed as a king who is faithful to God and whose faithfulness ensures that Jerusalem does not suffer the same fate as Samaria. 2 Chronicles 29-32 and Isaiah 36-39 also relate the events of Hezekiah’s reign in a very positive light.

The narrators of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles view the faithfulness of Hezekiah in his consolidation of worship in the temple in Jerusalem and the elimination of the long-established high places and sacred poles. The high places have failed to be eliminated by previous kings and to the narrator of 2 Kings that has provided a qualification of the faithfulness of any previous king, but now Hezekiah is viewed as an example of the type of king that the LORD expects. Even Nehushtan[2], the bronze serpent on a pole mentioned in Numbers 21, is destroyed to prevent the misuse of this object from the time of Moses. The faithfulness of Hezekiah is also rewarded with success as he both rebels against Assyria and expands his territory into the land of the Philistines. We will explore the impact of this rebellion against Assyria at the end of chapter eighteen and through chapter nineteen, but this introduction to the reign of Hezekiah’s twenty-nine year reign ends on a high note.

2 Kings 18: 9-12

⁹ In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it, ¹⁰ and at the end of three years took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹² because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.

This brief reminder of the Assyrian conquest of Samaria places the disaster of the northern kingdom in its place between the fourth and sixth year of Hezekiah. Most commentaries will note a struggle with the chronology here and in the following section since Samaria is destroyed in 722/721 BCE and in the following section Sennacherib (705-681 BCE) attacks in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah (believed to be 701 BCE). Ultimately this is a relatively minor instance of numbers not aligning and I do not want to detract from the basic contrast between the kings of the Israelites in the north who did not obey the voice of the LORD their God and Hezekiah who was faithful.

2 Kings 18:13-37

¹³ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ¹⁴ King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria demanded of King Hezekiah of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵ Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. ¹⁶ At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that King Hezekiah of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. ¹⁷ The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the fuller’s field. ¹⁸ When they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.
¹⁹ The Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this reliance of yours? ²⁰ Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹ See, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. ²² But if you say to me, ‘We rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’? ²³ Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ²⁴ How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants when you rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ²⁵ Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”
²⁶ Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Aramaic language, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷ But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you and not to the people sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”
²⁸ Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria: ²⁹ Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. ³⁰ Do not let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD by saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ ³¹ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, ³² until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey, that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ ³³ Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered its land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ³⁵ Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?”
³⁶ But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷ Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

This critical moment in the story of Zion is related here and in Isaiah 36. For both 2 Kings and Isaiah the implication of this story is clear, that God protected the city. The faithfulness of the people under Hezekiah leads God to intervene on behalf of the city and the people and Jerusalem, unlike Samaria, will be spared. In a David and Goliath type of moment the small kingdom of Judah resists the seemingly irresistible empire of Assyria.

Alex Israel gives a good summary of the events preceding Assyria’s actions against King Hezekiah and Jerusalem:

The death of an emperor always presented an opportunity for revolt, but the circumstances of Sargon’s death, widely seen as a bad omen for Assyria, exacerbated the unrest. Rebellion broke out at both extremities of the sprawling empire. East of Assyria, in Babylonia, Merodach-baladan (known in Kings as Berodach-baladan) crowned himself as ruler. In the West, Judah allied itself with Philistia and Egypt in rejecting Assyrian power. Since Kings records that Berodach visited Hezekiah in Jerusalem (II Kings 20: 12-13), it is probable that the resistance efforts in the East and the West were coordinated. Israel 289

During the roughly two decades since the destruction of Samaria we know that Hezekiah has been active both in attempting to strengthen the defenses of Jerusalem and has ensured that the city has an adequate water supply by cutting tunnels to carry the waters of the Gihon spring to the Siloam Pool. (Cogan, 1988, p. 221) The Philistine cities Hezekiah attacked in verse eight may have been those loyal to Assyria to secure this Philistine-Egyptian-Judah alliance on the western side of Assyria. Yet, when Assyria under Sennacherib attempts to regain control of the portions of its empire in rebellion it overwhelms the fortified cities of Judah and stands at the gates of Jerusalem where this challenge is issued.

King Hezekiah does attempt to appease the Assyrian king by submitting to a tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold[3] and Hezekiah empties the treasuries and strips the gold from the temple doorposts, yet the empire is not appeased and the troops of Assyria continue from the conquered city of Lachish to Jerusalem.

The Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh are three officials of Sennacherib. Tartan is the viceroy who had the authority to act on behalf of Sennacherib, Rabsaris is literally the “chief eunuch”, and Rabshakeh is the “chief cupbearer.” Rabshakeh is the speaker for the emissaries of Sennacherib to the representatives of King Hezekiah, Eliakim the steward of the palace, Shebnah the secretary and Joah the recorder. Rabshakeh speaks both to these representatives but also to the population watching from the walls to weaken the resolve of the defenders and to have people defect from Hezekiah. At the heart of Rabshakeh’s challenge is on what the people and Hezekiah can trust.[4]

Rabshakeh indicates that Egypt is not trustworthy and that any trust placed in their action to deliver will only wound the one who hoped in this weak and unreliable ally. Then Rabshakeh indicates that the people should not trust in the LORD since, in Rabshakeh’s interpretation, the people have at Hezekiah’s insistence removed the very sites that honored the LORD. Then the Rab-shakeh indicates that the presence of the Assyrian army is because the LORD has sent it, an argument that is echoed in Isaiah 10: 5-11. Finally, the people should not trust in Hezekiah to deliver them or when Hezekiah says to ‘trust in the LORD.’ Despite the efforts of Hezekiah to fortify the city, the Rab-shakeh mocks his ineffectual army which could not field two thousand mounted men if Assyria provided the horses. Rabshakeh also states that the gods of the other nations have not prevented Assyria from conquering them, and even if the LORD had not sent Assyria the God of Israel is powerless to prevent the destruction that the army of Assyria portends.

This crisis for the narrator of 2 Kings and Isaiah is more than a military and humanitarian crisis, it is a crisis of trust. Is the God of Israel trustworthy and is Hezekiah, God’s faithful king, trustworthy or does might make right. Can the emissaries of Sennacherib mock God and Jerusalem with impunity or will God intervene on their behalf. The actions of King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah in the following chapter will give a model of faithfulness for future generations and God’s response will prove God’s trustworthiness.

[1] In both cases the Hebrew word dabaq is used for these kings holding fast to either God or their foreign wives.

[2] Nehustan name suggests both the material nehoset, “bronze” and the image nahas, “serpent. (Cogan, 1988, p. 217)

[3] Assyrian records indicate eight hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. (Cogan, 1988, p. 229)

[4] The Hebrew batahta (trust) and derivative forms which are translated security/reliance permeate Rab-shakeh’s speech.

2 Kings 12 The Reign of King Jehoash/Joash of Judah

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The coronation of Jehoash of Judah (c.1840), by Francesco Hayez

2 Kings 12: 1-3

¹ In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign; he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. ² Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all his days because the priest Jehoiada instructed him. ³ Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

Jehoash, or Joash, is one of the kings of Judah regarded positively but there is a qualification to that assessment and when one looks closely at this narrative and the more critical parallel in 2 Chronicles 24 it leaves some questions about the totality of the reign of this king. The NIV renders the judgment of Jehoash’s reign. ”Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years Jehoida the priest instructed him.” The NIV appears to harmonize its translation with the narrative of 2 Chronicles (see below) but even within the narrative of 2 Kings there is enough to give pause. Yes, there is a qualification that the high places are not removed but looking closely at the end of 2 King’s description of Jehoash’s reign there are enough things revealed to indicate there may be some trouble below the surface of the narration.

Jehoash’s mother is named as Zibiah of Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba would be on the southern border of Judah and geographically distant from the influence of Northern Israel which had led to the turmoil of the previous chapter. There are numerous examples of queen mothers exercising significant power in both positive and negative manners. The influence of a Jezebel or Athaliah to corrupt both Israel and Judah are matched by a queen mother like Bathsheba who uses her influence to get Solomon in anointed rather than Adonijah.

2 Kings 12: 4-16

⁴ Jehoash said to the priests, “All the silver offered as sacred donations that is brought into the house of the LORD—the census tax, personal redemption payments, and silver from voluntary offerings brought into the house of the LORD ⁵ let the priests receive from each of the donors, and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered.” ⁶ But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had made no repairs on the house. ⁷ Therefore King Jehoash summoned the priest Jehoiada with the other priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the house? Now therefore do not accept any more silver from your donors but hand it over for the repair of the house.” ⁸ So the priests agreed that they would neither accept more silver from the people nor repair the house.
⁹ Then the priest Jehoiada took a chest, made a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the LORD; the priests who guarded the threshold put in it all the silver that was brought into the house of the LORD. ¹⁰ Whenever they saw that there was a great deal of silver in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest went up, cast the silver that was found in the house of the LORD into ingots, and counted it. ¹¹ They gave the silver that was weighed out into the hands of the workers who had the oversight of the house of the LORD; then they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the LORD, ¹² to the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the LORD, as well as for any outlay for repairs of the house. ¹³ But for the house of the LORD no basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels of gold or of silver were made from the silver that was brought into the house of the LORD, ¹⁴ for that was given to the workers who were repairing the house of the LORD with it. ¹⁵ They did not ask an accounting from those into whose hand they delivered the silver to pay out to the workers, for they dealt honestly. ¹⁶ The silver from the guilt offerings and the silver from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.

King Jehoash was probably involved in a number of important decisions and moments throughout his forty-year reign, but for 2 Kings the central event of his positively assessed reign is the repair of the temple. I’ve noted earlier that much of the book of Kings could have easily been the book of prophets, but it is also worth noting that the narrative of the book of Kings begins with Solomon’s construction of the temple (1 Kings 5-8) and ends with its destruction (2 Kings 25). In the ancient world the construction and maintenance of the temple and the worship in that temple was an expected part of royal piety, and while we can debate the proper balance between proper worship and faithful execution of the law both have been recently missing in Judah. As Alex Israel notes the temple is one hundred and fifty years old (Israel, 2019, p. 184) and 2 Chronicles makes explicit the damage that Athaliah has done:

⁷ For the children of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God and had even used all the dedicated things of the house of the LORD for the Baals. 2 Chronicles 24:7

Between the age of the structure and the misuse of the building it was likely in serious need of repair to be a structure worthy of the name of the LORD.

We do not know when in his reign Jehoash commanded that the taxes, payments, and specific offerings would be utilized for the repair of the temple. Jehoash began to reign at age seven and would have been heavily influenced by the priest Jehoida and others who advised him, but in his twenty-third year of his forty-year reign he is thirty years old and confronts Jehoida and the other priests about the lack of progress. There are multiple theories that have nothing to do with corruption that have plausibly explained the lack of progress: from the expectations of the priests to be the fundraisers for these taxes, payments, and offerings and limiting their appeal to their family groups, to inability of the priests to properly determine the scope of the work and effectively carry out the repairs. 2 Kings does not indicate that corruption was a part of the problem, although this is possible, nor does it indicate that the collected funds are not available. It gives Jehoash and Jehoida credit for creating a workable solution. While it is possible that the NRSVue’s translation which indicates that the process included taking the donated items and smelting them into ingots occurred at this time, the Hebrew only indicates they tied it up. The physical structure is the recipient of the repairs rather than creating the implements for the conduct of worship, and in light of the upcoming note on King Jehoash’s reign it is probably an important note. The text on the repair of the temple ends with a note that the priests still had a source of income from the guilt and sin offerings.

2 Kings 12: 17-18

¹⁷ At that time King Hazael of Aram went up, fought against Gath, and took it. But when Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem, ¹⁸ King Jehoash of Judah took all the votive gifts that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his ancestors, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, as well as his own votive gifts, all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and of the king’s house, and sent these to King Hazael of Aram. Then Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

King Hazael, first mentioned in chapter eight, captures Gath, one of the Philistine cities and then orients his forces on Jerusalem. Jehoash decides that he does not have adequate forces to resist Hazael’s force and so sets out with the treasures of Jerusalem to make peace. Military conflict in the ancient world is an economic matter and if a leader can gain a significant tribute, like the one mentioned above, without having to expend the cost and trouble of a military siege they will often take it. King Asa (1 Kings 15:18) utilized the temple resources to buy off the forces of Aram under King Ben-hadad (who Hazael later assassinated and assumed his role) and so it is only the gifts given under Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah that remain in the temple.

King Jehoash’s decision to bribe King Hazael not to attack may have been a wise one, but its narration in 2 Kings is ambiguous. The people of Judah were never a great military power but there is no indication that Jehoash seeks God’s will in this decision or that he trusts in God’s deliverance. This decision also probably brings the repair of the temple to an end, at least for a time. Military conflict and siege warfare create problems not just for the king but the entire population, yet many probably viewed this move as a sign of weakness and this may contribute to King Jehoash’s assassination by his servants in the next section.

2 Kings 12: 19-21

¹⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰ His servants arose, devised a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla. ²¹ It was Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, who struck him down, so that he died. He was buried with his ancestors in the city of David; then his son Amaziah succeeded him.

King Jehoash’s (or Joash) forty-year reign ends with his assassination by two subordinates: Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer. These men may have been slaves in the household of the king (the word translated servant has the primary meaning of slave) but whether they are servants or slaves it is an indication of a conspiracy[1] in the palace to end the reign of Jehoash. Brueggemann notes that in the 2 Kings narrative it could be a conspiracy by those who were faithful to Baal and the ways of Athaliah (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 423) but the 2 Chronicles 24: 17-22 telling of the end of Jehoash’s reign is very different and leads to the NIV translation noted in the beginning of the chapter:

¹⁷ Now after the death of Jehoiada the officials of Judah came and did obeisance to the king; then the king listened to them. ¹⁸ They abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and served the sacred poles and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. ¹⁹ Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord; they testified against them, but they would not listen.
²⁰ Then the spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada; he stood above the people and said to them, “Thus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has also forsaken you.” ²¹ But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord. ²² King Joash did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him but killed his son. As he was dying, he said, “May the Lord see and avenge!” 2 Chronicles 24: 17-22

If 2 Chronicles is accurate in its narration of the end of Jehoah’s reign it could have been out of loyalty to the LORD and the temple that these servants conspired against their king. It is plausible that 2 Kings wanted to narrate the reign of Jehoash in an overall positive manner without delving into the murky ending that 2 Chronicles narrates. If 2 Chronicles narrative is correct then Jehoash becomes a lesser version of Solomon: Solomon builds the temple and Jehoash repairs the temple, Solomon’s reign begins in wisdom, but later Solomon is led astray by his wives and Jehoash is led away by the officials of Judah. Ultimately, we only have the sources of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles to bear witness to this time in the story of Judah, and we can do our best to place the narratives in the world the inhabited but all of our reconstructions involve some level of educated guessing.

[1] The word translated “conspiracy” here is rendered as treason in 11:14. (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 422)

Psalm 120 A Pilgrimage To A Place Of Peace

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Pilgrim Steps Leading to the Double Gate (Southern Steps of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem) picture from 2009 by Wilson44691 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6899573

Psalm 120

A Song of Ascents.

¹ In my distress I cry to the LORD, that he may answer me:

² “Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”

³ What shall be given to you? And what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue?

⁴ A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree!

⁵ Woe is me, that I am an alien in Meshech, that I must live among the tents of Kedar.

⁶ Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace.

⁷ I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

The Psalms of Ascent (Psalm 120 – 134) are fifteen psalms that may have been used as a part of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Jerusalem sits upon a hill so any approach to Jerusalem is always an ascent, but the ascent may also refer to the ascending of the steps of the temple. Mishnah states there are fifteen steps that lead from the Court of Women to the Court of the Israelites which correspond to the fifteen psalms. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 887) It is conceivable that a practice of reciting these fifteen short (except for Psalm 132) psalms as one approaches Jerusalem or as one ascends the steps of the temple. As this psalm indicates, this practice may help the people transition from their exile in a world of war and deceitful tongues to their homecoming in the city of peace.[1]

Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. The poet is a stranger in a strange land. They are a foreigner/alien(ger) in the midst of a people of different gods, sharp tongues, and unjust practices. Meshech and Kedar are likely metaphors for places both geographically and spiritually distant from the memory of their homeland. The situation of this psalm forms the antithesis of Psalm 133: How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. The situation of Psalm 120 could be summarized: how traumatizing it is for one who lives as an alien among those who love division.

In language that resonates with James 3: 1-12, the psalmist describes the tongue as an instrument of violence. The psalmist may be the direct recipient of these deceitful and painful words, or they may exist in a society where the truth has disappeared.[2] Like the son in the parable of the prodigal[3] they may find themselves vulnerable and hungry in a world where no one cares. It may be ironic, as Brueggemann and Bellinger state, that the person who considers themself a person of peace would respond to these deceitful tongues with metaphorical weapons of war (Bellinger, 2014, p. 524) but the psalmist is asking for God to deliver. God is in the position to judge the people who the psalmist lives among. Yet, it is also possible that the description in verse four is merely a continuation of the description of the words of the lying lips and deceitful tongues. Sharp weapons are used metaphorically along with predatory animals to describe people hostile to the psalmist in Psalm 57:4. The broom tree is a hard wood tree known for its long burning fires. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 892)

This psalm can resonate with people of all times who attempt to live justly in an unjust world. Who seek peace (shalom) among a people whose words and actions seek conflict. As James L. Mays states about Psalm 120,

It is a poignant expression of the pilgrims’ pain over the world from which they come. It puts that world in the sharpest possible contrast to the peace they desire and seek in coming to Zion. (Mays, 1994, p. 388)

People of peace long for a homecoming where they can live in unity with their brothers and sisters who speak with truthful lips and words that heal instead of these weaponized tongues they encounter in the land of their sojourn. Pilgrimage, either physical or spiritual, is a hopeful ascent to a place of shalom.

[1] Jerusalem’s name comes from a combination of the word for city and shalom.

[2] Similar imagery is used in Psalm 10:4; 12: 1-4; and 31:8.

[3] Luke 15: 11-32.

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Reflections after a Journey Through 2 Kings

2 Kings 25 The End of the First Temple Era in Jerusalem

2 Kings 25: 1-21 The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Group of Judeans Taken Into Exile

2 Kings 25: 22-26 The Appointment and Assassination Gedaliah the Governor

2 Kings 25: 27-30 A Brief Note of Hope for the Line of David

2 Kings 24 The Last Kings of Judah and the Initial Exile

2 Kings 24: 1-7 The Reign of Jehoiakim

2 Kings 24: 8-17 The Reign of Jehoiachin and the First Siege of Jerusalem

2 Kings 24: 18-20 The Reign and Rebellion of Zedekiah

2 Kings 23 The Reforms and Death of Josiah

2 Kings 23: 1-3 Attempting to Recreate the Covenant

2 Kings 23: 4-14 Reforming the Practices in Judah

2 Kings 23: 15-20 Reforming the Practices in Israel

2 Kings 23: 21-23 Reestablishing the Passover

2 Kings 23: 24-30 The Death of Josiah, a Final Word on both Josiah and Judah

2 Kings 23: 31-37 The Brief Reign of Jehoahaz and the Transition to Jehoiakim

2 Kings 20 Hezekiah’s Healing and the Babylonian Envoys

2 Kings 20: 1-11

2 Kings 20:12-21

2 Kings 18 King Hezekiah and Sennacherib’s Threat to Jerusalem

2 Kings 18: 1-8

2 Kings 18: 9-12

2 Kings 18:13-37

2 Kings 12 The Reign of King Jehoash/Joash of Judah

2 Kings 12: 1-3

2 Kings 12: 4-16

2 Kings 12: 17-18

2 Kings 12: 19-21

Psalm 120 A Pilgrimage To A Place Of Peace

Psalm 120